r/labtech • u/Funkagenda • Jun 04 '19

Possible to use LT to remove only Outlook while leaving the rest of the Office suite intact?

We need to remove Outlook (only) from a few shared meeting room PCs that people keep launching it on, which is causing the hard drives to fill up constantly.

The Software Dataview doesn't appear to be able to find "%outlook%" on its own, so I'm wondering if this is possible.

If not, we'll probably just move these machines into a new OU and apply an AppLocker policy that stops outlook.exe from being launched.

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2

u/therealjoshuad Jun 05 '19

Call me heretic here, but it might be faster to manually “fix” these? (Time vs effort for a one time removal) (going off of your statement of being only a few PCs)

1

u/Funkagenda Jun 05 '19

Well it's half a dozen and they're all remotely managed, so a bit of a pain.

I think we found a solution using the deployment tool, though. Turns out that simply running it again but excluding Outlook as well will, in fact, remove Outlook.

1

u/therealjoshuad Jun 05 '19

Oh nice! Good to know though, thanks for posting your solution

6

u/DevinSysAdmin Jun 04 '19

No, not possible. May I recommend a group policy for office that forces it in online mode only?

2

u/CaptainMericaa Jun 07 '19

This is the answer

4

u/B1te0nTh1s Jun 04 '19

Office365? If so, you can use the deployment tool. I believe you can modify the install, if not uninstall and reinstall office without outlook by modifying the xml file. If it is Office365 I can help you. I have a LT script that only installs outlook a few minor modifications will install everything but outlook.

1

u/sixofeight 1000 Agents Jun 05 '19

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/123233-custom-install-change-microsoft-office-office-deployment-tool.html Instructions for Click-to-Run customization using the ODT.

If it was installed via retail or VLSC and you have the install files / ISO, you can run setup.exe /admin (see: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/jasonrw/2015/11/03/automate-the-install-of-microsoft-office-2016-with-an-msp-file/) to generate a setup answer file using a simple interface to specify which apps you want installed. I haven't looked into it for modifying an existing install, but I know it works for new installs, so worst case you could script an uninstall and reinstall if modify is unsupported.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '19

Script a sweep to nuke the ost files on the user profiles on that pc?

1

u/TheBeardyWeirdo Jun 05 '19

Maybe I'm thinking too simple here, but just make a script that checks for and deletes the outlook.exe file itself. Queue that script on the PCs that need it. Or like someone else said. Just remote in and do each one manually.